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Essence of Chivalry

Disclaimer:
Harry Potter is JK Rowling’s not mine.

Rating
for Chapter Number Two [Memory’s Dream]:PG

AN: I am sorry, I made a mistake. In the first
chapter, it says “June night” really it should say August. The wedding was on
August the 18th, and it is the day after that they left.

Thanks~ I thank again to my beta-reader: PirateQueen,
a very talented author and beta-reader who catches errors of mine in all
places.

2nd: To my friend, Ainslee, who reads all I
write and strangely sometimes enjoys it.

Essence of Chivalry

Chapter 2: Memory’s Dream

By MagicDust

Quote:

“Memory is a
child walking along a seashore. You can never tell what small pebble it will
pick up and store away among its treasured things.” –Pierce Harris

Harry’s feet smacked
down hard onto the sodden earth; he was the first to reach their destination
and turned in time to see a rather disgruntled Hermione and indifferent Ron,
appear alongside him with a quiet pop, or in Ron’s case, loud crack, on the
sloping green hill, frothy with early morning dew.

“Ron, how many
times do I have to tell you? You have got to work on your Apparating
skills; what if someone heard us?”

“Well maybe I
wouldn’t haveto be the teacher,” She responded hotly “If you actually
tried and I didn’t have to force you!” Ron opened his mouth to retort and soon
they were off, bickering as they always do.

Sighing, Harry took
this chance to glance around him.

In the weak morning
light of brisk pinks and purples, the tree tops glowed with the golden rays of
the sun, sparkling through the branches. A light cool wind danced through the
hair on his head, and caused his arms to prickle. Rubbing his shoulders, Harry
looked down the steep hill at the small village below.

The rooftops cast a
myriad of shadows on the cobblestone streets and the other sleeping buildings.
A small bird flitted down to rest on one of the homes, where the chimneys had already
begun to release small amounts of grey smoke into the sunrise, which disappeared
quickly with the wind.

Reaching into his
pocket, Harry pulled out a small folded piece of parchment. Instantly, he
recognized Remus’ neat script.

Godric’s
Hollow: pt.56 N; pt. 45 S; pt.78 E; pt.12 W

525 Godric’s
Hollow- Edge of town, on the far North side from the hill.

Those coordinates
had landed them right on the outskirts of the village.

Not bothering to
wait for the other two because he assumed once they stopped fighting, they
would join him, Harry began walk carefully down the hill, steeling his feet on
to the sloping ground so he wouldn’t trip.

When the ground
became level again, he walked a little quicker, eager to see the home of his parents.

Halfway towards the
first house, he heard ragged breathing and quick footsteps behind him. Turning,
he saw Hermione and Ron running at full speed towards him.

“HARRY!” Hermione
yelled. Harry winced; he hoped she hadn’t woken up the entire village. Slowly,
he turned around to face her. “DON’T GO OFF ALONE!” she yelled, her voice fearful.
He raised a finger to his lips and pointed at the house with his opposite hand
at the village.

Hermione clamped
her mouth shut but Harry could almost see rolling through her head. Once the
other two had reached him, Harry began to speak in a soft voice.

“This village,” he
said inclining his head slightly to the left, “is only half magical, meaning we
can’t flaunt our magic.” He looked directly at Hermione.

“What…?” Hermione
said, oblivious. (best to just leave it at ‘oblivious’ here)

“Wonder if they
actually still have your mum and dad’s house open.” Ron said looking around the
place.

“Remus said that
they had left it alone since their death.” Hermione replied reaching inside her
pocket. Pulling out something small she continued “but he said he really had to
fight for it; the government wanted to turn it into a museum or something.”

“Oh yes,” Harry
said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “This is where my mum read her novels,”
he said pointing at nothing in particular. “And this is where my dad ate
breakfast in the morning,” he continued, pointing directly at a large rock.

A woman with long
grey hair, who was picking up her newspaper, looked over at them strangely. Ron
smiled innocently. She watched them for a while longer before shaking her head
and walking back up the path to her home.

“Harry,” Hermione
said. “This is the key.” In her outstretched hand was a tiny bronze key with a
small string fastened to it. Harry picked it out of her hand and closed his
knuckles over it, warming it slightly.

“Thanks,” he said,
turning towards the empty road ahead. He began to walk forward, pulling Remus’
note out of his robes and glanced over the coordinates. He frowned, his brow creased with
concentration.

Harry looked
around; the coast was clear. Only a few people wandered the streets, others
still slept on in the wake of the weekend. Shrugging his wand into his hand and
keeping it up his sleeve, he pointed it in the direction he thought to be
north. “Point me,” he whispered to it.

Harry felt his arm
vibrate, and shifting a few feet from where he was headed. He smiled slightly
to himself, beckoning the others to follow.

Their steps echoed
against the cobbled streets, and their robes occasionally swished, but other
than that, the trio was silent. By the time they reached the centre of the
village, more people had begun to emerge.

About halfway
through the town, Harry realized how very odd it must have looked for a
teenager to be walking down the street with his arm extended at nothing,
leading two others behind him, and occasionally muttering to himself. Abruptly,
he lowered his arm until it was barely hovering.

Occasionally,
people would stop and look at the newcomers. Some would even point and whisper
inaudible comments; Harry pulled his robe collar up, and self-consciously pushed
down his bangs.

As the sun rose,
voices stirred rising louder into the breezy morning. The three teenagers remained;
there was nothing to say really, it was a time that all of them needed to
reflect and dream. Harry alternated between wanting to run at the house or drag
his feet.

Looking up at the
path ahead, his glasses flashing, Harry noticed how the houses became fewer and
fewer; the silence became more and more blissful. They must be getting closer, he
reasoned.

Never had he had anything
that had belonged to his parents. Sure, he had some pictures that Hagrid had
given him in his first year, but those were like memories in Dumbledore’s Pensieve;
they always painted a vivid image in his mind and heart, but when ever he saw them,
he always wanted more. Now was his chance, but ironically enough, he didn’t
want it; he just couldn’t handle it right now.

“Harry,” Ron said
abruptly. Harry’s head snapped up, looking straight ahead. An inaudible gasp
ran through his mind, and an iron fist clenched around his chest.

A small cottage
rested in front of them. Innocent oak tree branches leaned casually over a
small path leading to the front door. The mostly demolished picket fence hung
haphazardly in several directions, one plank leaning carefully against the mail
box.

525 Godric’s
Hollow

-was written in
peeling black letters.

This was the Potters’
house, his parents’ home.

Harry looked at his
friends. Ron stood slightly to his right, eyeing the house with obvious interest,
glancing every so often at Harry. Hermione was on his left, staring at anywhere
but Harry; honestly, most of the time it seemed that they thought he was just
going to break down and cry; they watched him intently so they could be there,
ready with a Silencing charm and a hanky.

Taking a deep
breath as the wind ruffled his hair; Harry steadied his shoulders and walked
briskly up the path. Dimly, he heard Ron and Hermione scuffle up behind him.
Harry stepped onto the porch, the boards creaking quietly as his boots touched
them. The key swayed slightly in the wind as he raised it up by the string.

Anxiously, he shoved his glasses up his nose, and grasped
the key firmly between his thumb and palm.

He moved his hand
steadily towards the door, and paused for a moment, a few centimeters away from
the key hole.

Memories that were
more like night terrors slashed at him, one in particular.

His parents.

That night.

October
thirty-first.

“Lily, take
Harry and GO! I’ll hold him off!”

“Power the Dark Lord
knows not…”

“No, please!
Not Harry! Have mercy! Take me instead!”

“…the chosen
one…He. Will. Save. Us. All.”

The prophecy, the
stupid prophecy, was the core of it all.

Harry shook the
offending images from his head; it was no time to be slipping off into a string
of thought.

With renewed
courage, Harry inserted the key into the lock, turning it firmly to the right.
The door opened like it would have those 16 years ago when James and Lily first
moved into their home.

Not bothering to
remove the key from the door, Harry turned the knob and took the first step
inside.

His first
impression of the room was startling; it looked as though nothing had ever been
moved.

“Lumos Maximum,”
he whispered. Promptly, the lamps flickered on, illuminating the room with
their orange glow.

The room was
furnished carefully and tastefully with deep red furniture. Before an unlit fire
grate, facing directly north, an elongated couch sat, with a rectangular end
table where a lamp stood. Running around the west wall, the bookshelves brimmed
over with books, untouched for years. The east wall was claimed victoriously by
a staircase, which passed a small rectangular window, and led up to a dark
hallway.

In short, it was exactly
the way he pictured it.

Somehow, Harry
could imagine his mother curled up on the couch reading quietly by the fire to
him, and sometimes, out loud to James. He could practically see Sirius and
Remus coming through the door, on one of the rare times they could visit, and
flopping down onto the couch next to her.

Padding across the short,
tan carpet, Harry picked a book randomly from the shelf and opened the inside
cover. His heart seemed to thump out of his chest.

Lily-

For as long as I
have known you, you have read, so now, I think your brain can’t hold anymore; but, for the sake of
my fragile heart, at least try and read this.

Happy Birthday,

Love From,

James

“What are you doing
here?” a voice snapped behind him. Harry jumped and on instinct, grabbed his
wand, which caused him to drop the book on his foot. Wincing, he looked up and
found a pair of bright grey eyes boring into him.

“Well,” the old
woman said, tossing her long slightly graying brown hair off her shoulder. “I
asked you, what are you doing here, breaking in and entering without permission?”

Harry opened his
mouth to speak, but Hermione got there first.

“Hello, my name is
Hermione Everhart,” she said extending a hand. “Estate agent and these are my
partners, Ron
Josephs,” Hermione said, pointing at Ron, “and er….Harley,” indicating Harry.
Harry threw her an angry look and began to speak.

“Harley is deaf, ma’am,”
she continued, “so please excuse him; he gets rather temperamental when others
around him who can speak take advantage of the ability.” Hermione walked over
and patted Har---Harley’s shoulder firmly, as if to say ‘Be quiet, or she will
be able to tell I am lying.’

“Who are you?” Ron
said straightening slightly. Harry noticed that he had found his way towards Hermione.

The woman regarded
them for a moment and then cocked an eyebrow at Hermione, in what seemed like a
vaguely familiar gesture. There was silence for a moment while the woman’s grey
eyes locked with Hermione’s rich brown. It seemed as though it was a staring
contest. Finally the woman blinked and looked up.

“My name is Helen
Deepak, and I,” she waved a hand around the room, “own this place. Pleased to
meet you---- all of you,” she said, eyeing the trio. She turned to Harry. “You
must be the Potters’ son. How long have I waited to meet you!”

“Eh … ?” he gasped
out.

“You don’t sound
deaf to me.” Helen smiled kindly. Harry spluttered a moment, trying to decide
whether or not he should give into
this woman’s piercing gaze.

Helen let out a soft
chuckle. “Relax, I know who you are, boy,” she said. “I know all of it.”

“You know all of what?”
Ron said defensively. She turned to him.

“I know you aren’t
Ron Josephs, you are Ronald Bilius Weasley. I know Hermione Granger isn’t
Hermione Everhart and I know Harry is by no means deaf, and he doesn’t even
look like a Harley. Hermione, you may want to work on not keeping eye contact
with a stranger too long.” Helen smiled at Hermione’s flushed face.

“Well, I mean it is
obvious how you guessed Harry,” she said a bit sullenly.

“Yes, by his hair,
the same horrible mess as his father’s, funny I would have thought that you
would have had Lily’s hair and James’ eyes but it looks like the other way
round, eh?” Helen said good-naturedly.

“Yeah, er, I suppose,”
Harry said, a little taken aback by the woman’s knowledge.

He gingerly nudged
the carpet with his boot toe; if this woman knew as much as she claimed, it was
just a matter of time before she knew everything; and who knew how much there
actually was to know.

“So…Miss Granger,”
Helen said turning to Hermione, who immediately turned her gaze to the window.
“What exactly are you hoping to find?”

“Nothing, I told
you,”

“Yes I know that is
what you said,” Helen crossed her arms. “But what I want is the truth.”

Hermione bit her
lip as she cast a quick glance at Harry.

“I wanted to see my
parents, or where they lived rather.” Harry said looking around the quiet
house, barren of any life save the soft breathing or nervous shifts of his
friends. Glancing back up at Helen, he saw a glimmer of sadness in the deep
depths of her eyes.

Finally, she gave a
brief nod.

“Well, all right,”
she said, regaining her brisk manner. She walked over to the stairs “The house
is pretty straight forward, upstairs, downstairs, two bedrooms, one bath,
kitchen, and living room,” She said turning her head in each direction

Harry glanced at
Ron, who glanced at Hermione who—didn’t look up. Instead, her eyes were
transfixed on Helen.

Helen, however, couldn’t
have cared less; she was fiddling with a small trinket around her slender neck;
a beautiful tear-drop golden locket engraved with smooth ruby lettering, which
spelled out Alieno Mihi Non, enhancing the locket’s delicate features.

Sighing, Hermione
was the first to move. “C’mon you two,” she said walking quickly towards the
stairs. “Let’s have a look around.”

Spinning on his
heel, Harry followed Hermione up the straight staircase. As soon as the trio
was swallowed up by the darkness on the last stair, Ron spoke.

“Who is
she?” He said glancing back in the direction of Helen, who was humming a random
tune quietly to herself. Harry shook his head.

“I don’t know, but
I get the feeling she comes here regularly.”

“Wouldn’t Remus
have warned us before we got here about someone who knew how to get here?”
Hermione asked raising her eyebrow slightly.

“Unless he didn’t
know himself.”

“Why wouldn’t he
have known?”

“Look, we don’t
have a lot of time here,” Harry said, intervening quietly, his voice barely
above a whisper. “We have to stay on schedule, the sooner we find this Horcrux,
the sooner all this can be over.”

The other two
nodded in consent. Casting a glance once more down the stairs, Harry pushed his
glasses up the bridge of his nose, and carefully stepped past the other two and
onto the landing. He blinked a few times to adjust to the darkness before fully
removing his wand from his pocket.

“Let’s split up,” Ron
said, walking towards a door on the left-hand side of the hall. He opened the
door a crack and slipped inside. Hermione held her head up and walked farther
down the hall to the last door on the left. Mimicking Ron, she opened the door
with a soft click and soon disappeared from sight.

Revolving to his
right, Harry’s eyes met a simple wooden door, begging to be searched. He
turned, and reached his hand out to grasp the handle. He wasn’t afraid of Death
Eaters popping out of nowhere, that wasn’t it. It was the simple fear that he
may learn even more of the past history of his parents’ suffering.

‘But this is no
time to think on that,’
Harry mused quietly.

Was it ever?

Shaking his head as
though it could tip all the bad thoughts from his mind, Harry once more
gathered his strength to venture, for the second time in one hour, into the
unknown interiors of his past.

Darkness met his
eyes as Harry stepped into the chill room. He stood solitary in the door frame
for just a moment, breathing in deep the smell of some new thing that had never
seemed so long lost to Harry’s heart until now.

However, as he took
a confident step into the room, his equilibrium was disturbed. From nowhere,
roaring orange blue flames whizzed dangerously past his ear and jumped into several
lamps, lighting the room with a dim glow. Stumbling back slightly, Harry rubbed
his ear subconsciously and looked around the newly light room.

“Great---Golden…Snitches,”
he whispered. However, it wasn’t the new arrival of the fire that made him gasp,
but the surroundings in which he found himself standing.

A nursery. A baby
nursery. His room as an infant.

The room, though
the tinier details were obscured by the dim light of the lamps, was in one word,
perfect. The light cream walls, flickering with thin shadows, enclosed a wooden
cradle, which stood untouched, a safe distance away from the window. A long
dark blue couch sat facing the cradle, decorated elaborately with what looked
to be hand woven pillows of colorful yarns. Shelves of books lined the right wall,
meeting a small blue window seat on the farthest wall, its window concealed by
dust filled drapes.

“Wow.” Harry
breathed glancing carefully around the room, taking every part in separately.
One piece in particular caught his now calm eye. A small table, crafted of pine
wood, stood carefully by the door frame. Bending down for a closer look, Harry
saw a small crystal vase, tiny carved rose buds blossoming around the sides.
Filled to the brim, the vase held one single flower.

A lily.

It was wilted, but
all the same it seemed to fit, right down to the petals tanned by trials of
age.

Something about the
flower, despite its decayed form, made Harry want to reach out and hold it, to
be close to something that reminded him of his mother.

He reached his hand
out softly. As soon as his fingers brushed the centre of the flower’s bud,
something remarkable happened; the flower began to grow.

The flower’s state,
seemingly of its own accord, began to change, the colors richen, and the lily
itself straightening and lengthening. The tips began to moisten; soon it
brimmed with life. And then, as soon as its transformation had started, it abruptly
stopped.

The previously rotten
brown color was now replaced with a deep faded purple that ran over petals accompanied
by a creamy white. Brown opal shaped dots stood out on the flower, which leaned
delicately in the vase, flickering with the light from the lamps.

Harry was at a loss
for words. Reaching out his hand he carefully picked the flower up. Warmth
spread across his finger tips and throughout his hand. Despite himself, he
smiled.

“Harry?” a voice
said quietly from the door way

Harry straightened
and looked at Ron, who was standing next to Hermione in the doorway. Harry
followed Hermione’s eyes around the room. Carefully, she walked over the
bookshelf and looked over the books.

“Er, Hermione? This
room was Harry’s when he was about one,” Ron said going to stand by her. “So I
don’t think you will find anything above any normal baby’s reading level.”

Hermione turned to
face Ron, holding a slim paper back in one hand and a dusty blue velvet
volume in the other.

“I know that, Ron,
I just looking for something we can press the flower into,” She said, carefully
replacing the books.

“Why…?”

Hermione ignored
him as she pulled out a rather thick book. Its cover was a rich purple, with
faded golden lettering that had long since been lost to the human eye.

“Well now, I think
this will do.” Hermione said briskly, opening a page of the book at random, and
holding her hand out for the flower. Harry reluctantly gave it, and she placed
the beautiful creation between the thick parchment pages. She closed the book
with a gentle snap, and it was soon tucked away into her bag.

“Harry,” Ron said
shaking his head at Hermione, “we found some stuff in the other rooms.”

“I’ll come in a minute;
I just would like a moment longer,” Harry said, looking around the room, trying
to memorize each part. Though they thought Harry hadn’t seen, he had, as
Hermione exchanged a nervous glance with Ron who nodded and led her out of the
room.

After they’d left
and he could no longer hear there footsteps, Harry plopped down on the couch
with a loud sigh. Looking down at the pillows, one caught his eye. Fingering at
the embroidered lion, which was laying on a backdrop of red material, which
felt just like his old Quidditch robes, Harry looked at the window seat; he
could almost picture his mum holding him close, singing him to sleep.

Suddenly, Harry
stood up. There was so much he had yet to explore in this house; it was time to
move on to the next room. He placed the pillow carefully against the others and
began to cross the floor.

-Creak-

Harry stopped and
looked around. Deciding it was nothing, he picked up his foot to keep walking.

-Creak-k-

Furrowing his brows,
Harry squatted onto the floor. He ran his hand over the hard wooden panels.

After a few
moments, he moved his hand over the deep blue threadbare rug. For a while, he
simply sat there, running his hands over the boards and putting pressure on
individual ones. Finally, his hand found something; where one board should have
been nailed down hard onto the joists, didn’t seem to want to stay down.

Barely able to
control his heartbeat, Harry threw back the rug to examine the boards. At first
glance, he could see something out of place; a board a little way from the
centre was slightly out of place. Its back part was firmly fixed in the floor, but
the front part was raised above floor level.

Removing the bent
nail from its hole, Harry took his wand out and aimed it at the other two nails
that were keeping him from discovering a secret within a whole chasm of the
past life he had never had the joy to know.

“Aufero Res.”
He whispered breathlessly. The nails flew from their places and landed with a
clatter nearby.

He carefully laid
the board beside him and turned back to the now gaping hole in the middle of
the bed room floor.

“Lumos.”

Soft yellow light
filtered carefully from his wand as Harry pointed it downwards, illuminating
the darkness.

He gasped, staring
wide-eyed down into the pit. Amid a myriad of cloth,interwoven together with mismatched
material, something sat, as though it had been waiting sixteen years for him.

And that much he
knew.

A/N:
Cliffhanger! Sorry, I will have Chapter Three up soon. Now it is time for some
things to say.

***I have one thing
to say, to agree or disagree with a reviewer, will Ginny stay away from Harry,
Ron and Hermione? You think just like I do. I have that already decided, so I
guess we will just have to wait and see.

//

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